Christmas Holiday 2009

Life - 

Life carried on when we returned to Poky. I wouldn't say it got back to normal, but things weren't too bad. The main thing was my arm. I started getting extremely claustrophobic at times, I'd get shaky and nervous, sick to my stomach. I also noticed the cold a lot more, getting hot and cold flashes seemingly at random, with the cold always starting in my right arm. I suppose that it will alway sbe more sensitive, I can be one of those old sailor types that talks about feeling things in their bones.

It was, if anything, harder to get back into the spirit of Christmas after the accident. Money was extremely tight, I had regular doctor's visits, despite my injury and utter uselessness, I was working still, we still found ourselves surrounded by the chaos wrought by having my mom and brother move in, it was a trying time.

The worst was my feeling of complete worthlessness. It took me 27 minutes to wrap a single Christmas gift. I could barely dress myself or use the bathroom and any of those things took forever to do. Typing was out of the question, it hurt too much and was nearly impossible. I couldn't sleep in the bed, I got too claustrophobic and felt like I was trapped, so since coming home, I've slept in the chair in the front room. (In an area that my wife has deemed my "wallowing hole")

I did not have high hopes for the holiday itself.

Turns out, I was incredibly, happily wrong on all counts! Christmas was an absolute joy. It was the first year I've had off since I ran the Chevron, seven years ago, and just that was great.

We woke up early, or at least I did, I always have been one of those kids that rushes down the hall to wake my mom at 5am on Christmas morning, but to my credit, I resisted waking anyone until 7am this year.

We spent the morning with my mom and brother, opening gifts and eating a breakfast casserole. I may not be a kid anymore, but I have to admit, the gifts I get from my side of the family always make me feel like one. I got a Kermit the frog beanie cap, an Indiana Jones Lego set (Something that was devilishly hard to put together left handed, by the way) A Lawrence Watt-Evans book, just a lot of really great, fun stuff. The crown jewel was easily my brother's gift, a Muppet Whatnot, from FAO Schwarz! Love these things, and have always wanted one. He initially designed one to look vaguely like me, but in the end he looks more like Roy Orbison, so I've named him Orbie. Now I just have to get better so that I can work him and find my Muppet voice for him!

After a while, we headed over to Rich and Sue's to spend Christmas with them. My brother and sister-in law would be arriving later on, driving up from Salt Lake City, and it was kind of nice to spend the morning alone with Rich and Sue. We opened gifts, I dozed a bit, nice and relaxing.

I always get more adult gifts from Lindsay's family, and it's fun having it both ways. They gave us a good chunk of clothing, especially socks, something that I was in dire need of. We also received some really nice cooking supplies, a book on Idaho Outlaws, Linz got some new shoes, once again, a really generous haul!

We were also fortunate enough to be given a gift from an anonymous Christmas Angel, something to help us with the difficult month we'd had and were having and I want to take a moment to sincerely thank that person, whoever it was. Your gift meant a tremendous amount to us, and will make a big difference.

Eventually, Marissa, Dylan and Cami arrived and the Christmas party fell into full swing, with wrapping paper flying, people wrasslin' family photos, goofing off. Pretty fun stuff for a buch of adults!

Later that evening I started feeling groggy and sore so we went home, relaxed for a while and topped off the night with a round of board games with my mom and brother. Really, a great Christmas, one of the best in recent memory.

Book Reviews

This isn't really much of a review, more of an update. I just have too many books that I've read to properly review them, even in my abbreviated "five things" format.  wanted to post them though, so that in the next few days I can post my official End Of Year reading totals. I haven't kept a very close eye on numbers yet this year, so it should be fun to see what I ended up reading!

Anyway, here are the books I've read since my last update on December 8th:

IGRAINE THE BRAVE

by Cornelia Funke

2007, 224 pages

DIE TRYING

by Lee Child

2006, 576 pages

JUDGE & JURY

 by James Patterson and Andrew Goss

2007, 434 pages

THE MUMMY, THE WILL AND THE CRYPT

by John Bellairs

1985, 176 pages

THE JURY

by Steve Martini

2002, 336 pages

CHASING DARKNESS

by Robert Crais

2008, 391 pages

TERMINAL FREEZE

by Lincoln Child

2009, 448 pages

HOLLYWOOD TOUGH

by Stephen J. Cannell

2003, 376 pages

Considering my arm and the pain meds made it ridiculously hard to read a lot of the time, eight books in the last 23 days of 2009 isn't too bad!